This
week's Torah portion, Parshas Vayikra, kicks off the Third Book of the
Five Books of Moses - The Book of Leviticus - and primarily deals with
the Korbanos, or ritual sacrifices, that the Jewish people were commanded
to offer to God in the Sanctuary.

Now
the idea of animal sacrifices might seem repugnant to us progressive moderns
of today, and perhaps rightly so. The sacrificial system would be brutal
and barbaric unless administered in an atmosphere filled with holiness
and dedication to God, where its full spiritual and mystical nature is
thoroughly appreciated.

Therefore,
only a nation of the highest moral and spiritual caliber could be worthy
of offering sacrifices to God.

When
the Jewish people no longer maintained this high standard, the sacrificial
system was abolished by God through the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem
in the year 3830 (70 CE). And, as is reflected in our daily prayers where
we ask of God, "Please, God, restore the Service to Your Holy Temple"
- we long for a time when the Third Temple will be rebuilt, and we will
once again return to the sacrificial system - only then we will be on
a level where we will be able to understand and appreciate it.

Yet
though it is true that we presently have no Holy Temple and no ritual
sacrifices to speak of, it is nonetheless worth our time to delve into
the laws and concepts involved in the sacrificial system, as they can
help us gain greater insight into their modern-day replacement - the Daily
Prayers.

You
see, we are taught in the Talmud (Tractate Berachot 6b) that Tefillah
(prayer) is considered the service of God similar to the sacrifices of
the Holy Temple. Just as the sacrifices served to help man come
to the realization of his true essence and to return to himself and to
God, so, too, does prayer connect man with his inner self, drawing him
closer to the true needs and yearnings of his own soul and to God.

It
is for this reason that, when it is impossible to bring sacrifices, as
is the case today when the Holy Temple in Jerusalem has not yet been rebuilt,
prayer can be offered in their stead, as the prophet exclaimed, "We
will offer the words of our lips instead of claves" (Hosea 14:3).
Thus, formal prayers were ordained by the Men of the Great Assembly in
place of the regular daily sacrifices performed in the Temple in Jerusalem
- which themselves were accompanied by prayer and song. Moreover,
the prayer of a sincere heart is far better than any sacrifice, as King
David wrote, "I will praise the name of God with a song, I will exalt
Him with thanksgiving, and it shall please God more than the offering
of a bullock" (Psalms 69:31-32).

[In
fact, since our prayers of today are a "substitute" for the
sacrifices of ancient times, many of the laws of Tefillah mentioned in
the Shulchan Aruch (the authoritative Code of Jewish Law written by R.
Joseph Karo of Tzefas in the 1600's and followed by traditional Jews till
today) derive from the laws of the ritual sacrifices - as spelled out
in the Torah. For example, the Torah states (Leviticus 7:18)
that it is forbidden to eat a korban that has become pigul (unfit). If
the Kohein was thinking an improper thought at the time he was sacrificing
the korban, it becomes pigul. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 98:4) writes
that since our prayers are in place of the Korbanos, we must be careful
not to allow an improper thought to cross our minds while praying, as
it will invalidate the tefillah in the same way that it made the sacrifice
pigul. The Shulchan Aruch continues to explain that we should be standing
and have a makom kavua (fixed place) for tefillah, just as the Kohein
(priest) prepared the korban while standing in a fixed place. It is also
fitting for everyone to wear refined and appropriate clothing while praying
to God in the synagogue, just as the priests would wear special garments
when they offered the sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem.]

So
we see that the daily prayers that our Sages instituted and formalized
almost 2000 years ago are really a "Korban copy" of the sacrifices
of Temple times, and, as such, must contain within them the essence and
basic elements of the ritual offerings that were once offered to God.

Let's
examine one aspect of the sacrificial system that is recorded in the beginning
of this week's Torah portion, and that will hopefully give us greater
insight into the essence of Tefillah - its modern-day parallel.

"RELIGIOUS
COERCION" AND THE DAILY PRAYERS

When
discussing the laws of a person who vows to bring a Korban Olah - an "elevation-offering"
- to God, the Torah writes the following: "El pesach Ohel Mo'ed yakriv
oso l'retzono lifnei Hashem ... He must bring it to the entrance of the
Tent of Meeting, voluntarily, before God" (Leviticus 1:3).

The
contradiction in this verse is quite obvious. The verse starts off with
a commandment, an imperative - "yakriv oso . He must bring it [the
offering]", yet it concludes by stating that the Korban has to be
brought "l'retzono . voluntarily", expressing an act of one's
own inner will.

Rashi
quotes the Talmud in Rosh Hashanah 6a which reconciles the two parts of
the verse and explains that if one is required to bring an offering but
refuses to do so, the Beis Din (Rabbinical court) may coerce him until
he expresses his willingness.

Now,
let me ask you ... how are to we understand that?! The court twists the
guy's arm until he screams, "Okay, I'll bring the stupid sacrifice
.. just let go of my arm!" - and this is called voluntary??

If
you think about it, this same contradiction exists with regard to the
Tefillah/Daily Prayers that the Sages of old instituted as a replacement
for the sacrifices.

I
mean, we are taught in the Talmud that the essence of Tefillah is Avodah
Shebeleiv - "Service of the Heart" - which implies that prayer
is supposed to be an emotional outpouring and expression of our heart's
sincere yearning and longing to draw closer to God.

And
yet, when we take a look at the institution of the Daily Prayers as a
whole, a totally different picture emerges - one in which everything seems
to be regulated, and definitely not from the heart. The Rabbis obligated
every Jew to pray to God on a daily basis. And they also instituted a
formal version of the Shemoneh Esrei/Silent Prayer for all Jews to say
as they stand in prayer before their Father in Heaven. Prayers must be
held in a synagogue, and should be said with a minyan (quorum) of ten
Jews present.

It's
almost like the Rabbis are "forcing" us to pray from our hearts
- "Here, take this Prayer Book in your hands, go into the shul, and
tell God how much you really want Him to help you gain wisdom, forgiveness,
sustenance, and whatever else we wrote in there for you to ask of Him".
That's not "service of the heart" . That's religious coercion!

"IF
YOU'LL BE THERE, IT WILL COME"

We
can attempt to resolve this apparent paradox with the help of a fascinating
insight found in the commentary of the Chasam Sofer (R. Moshe Sofer, Chief
Rabbi and leader of Hungarian Jewry in the mid-19th century) to the abovementioned
verse:

The
Chasam Sofer writes about a Jew who is living in a small farming village,
far away from the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, where he is involved most
of the day in material and mundane pursuits. Such a Jew thinks that all
he really wants in this world is to have more money and to experience
more physical pleasure that's pretty much all that he's been exposed to.
And even if someone were to point out to him the beauty of the Torah and
the amazing spirituality that one can attain through the bringing of Korbanos
in the Temple, the farmer would not be able to relate to it since he is
forever being distracted by all the materialism that surrounds him and
consumes his life.

But
if we were to take this very same farmer and bring him (screaming and
kicking the whole way) to Jerusalem, where he would be exposed to all
the great Tzaddikim (righteous individuals) and Torah scholars who fill
the Holy City and who spend their time learning Torah and growing spiritually,
and whose faces shine with the radiance of one who knows what life is
really all about - he would start to realize that what he thought was
important isn't really that important at all, and that the pursuit of
Godliness and spiritual refinement of character is the real goal of life.

And
if we were then to take this farmer into the Temple itself, where he would
see the Kohanim in all their regal splendor performing the Holy Service,
and where he would be able to sense and feel the palpable holiness of
God's Shechinah (Divine Presence) that literally permeated the whole of
the Temple - he would surely have an incredible yearning to offer up his
own personal sacrifice in an attempt to draw even closer to God.

Thus,
explains the Chasam Sofer, the Torah is telling us as follows: "El
pesach Ohel Mo'ed yakriv oso ... to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting
he must bring it" - i.e. until this Jew who vowed to bring a Korban
has reached the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and has not yet been
exposed to the beauty of the spiritual world, he must bring the sacrifice
with him, and should he refuse, the Beis Din can coerce him. And
the reason why we take the liberty of forcing him into bringing his offering
is because "l'retzono lifnei Hashem .. voluntarily, before God"
- i.e. we are convinced that when he is already standing before God in
the spiritually-uplifting atmosphere of the Holy Temple, he will gladly
offer his sacrifice voluntarily.

This,
I believe, is the key to understanding how Tefillah works as well. Like
the farmer in the story, we spend most of our day involved in material
and this-worldly pursuits, and this serves to distract us from what it
is that our souls truly need and yearn for. So we think that what we really
want and need in life is this luxury and that vacation and this materialistic
pleasure etc.

But
the Rabbis who understood our own neshamot (souls) better than we do,
took the liberty of "obligating" and "coercing" us
into standing before God in the synagogue each day, and praying to Him
with the words of the Shemoneh Esrei/Silent Prayer that they themselves
chose for us to say. And they did this because the rabbis were confident
that once the Jew enters the sanctity of the synagogue, and is no longer
distracted by the materialism and physicality of the world outside, and
he begins to read from the Siddur (Prayer Book) and to ask God for all
those things that the Sages included in the formal version of the prayers
- things like wisdom and insight, the ability to repent and start over,
forgiveness for past misdeeds, the coming of the utopian Messianic Era,
the restoration of the Temple Service in Jerusalem, etc. - he will quickly
recognize that these are the things that he really needs and that truly
count in life, and that all the other stuff is really unimportant.
At that point he will gladly and voluntarily offer this prayer up to God
- a true "service of the heart".

SYNAGOGUES
FLOWING WITH LEAVEN AND HONEY

Well,
at least that's the way things ought to be when we enter the synagogue
and begin to pray. Unfortunately, things today don't seem to be working
out exactly as the Rabbis had planned them.

You
see, there is another law regarding the ritual sacrifices mentioned in
this week's Torah portion that I forgot to mention - a law that tells
us a lot about how we are to serve God when we bring our Korbanos to Him,
or, for that matter, when we stand before Him in prayer in the synagogue.

In
Leviticus 2:11, the Torah commands us: "You shall not cause to go
up in smoke from any leavening or fruit-honey as a fire-offering to God".
In other words, there is a Biblical prohibition against offering either
leaven (se'or) or fruit-honey (devash) as a Korban to God.

The
commentaries explain the symbolism of this prohibition as follows: Since
the essence of the ritual sacrifices, as we mentioned earlier, is to come
to a realization of who we are and what our souls really want in this
world, we should refrain from offering any se'or, or leavening agent,
whose entire purpose is to inflate the dough with air pockets, distorting
the dough's true essence and giving it a façade of being more than it
truly is. Nor should we offer any devash, or sweet honey, representing
an obsession with the pursuit of physical pleasures that can only serve
to distract us from focusing on our true needs.

Since
prayer today replaces the sacrifices of Temple times, it follows that
our prayer experience in the synagogue should also be leaven and honey-free.
(We've all heard of smoke-free and peanut-free buildings .. But leaven
and honey-free?!) This means that there should be no distractions in the
synagogue that would hinder our ability to focus on our prayers and on
all those spiritual things that we now realize that we truly want in this
world.

The
problem today is that we have brought a little too much leaven and honey
into the synagogue. Whereas once upon a time it was understood by
even the most ignorant Jew that the focal point of the entire prayer service
was the Shemoneh Esrei/Silent Prayer, when a Jew places the Tallis (prayer
shawl) over his head and spends some quality time talking with God and
focusing on what his neshamah really needs and yearns for - today, much
of the focus of our prayers is on the stuff that is done outwardly and
in public, like the singing at the Reading of the Torah and at the end
of the services or the public chanting of the Haftarah. And anything done
publicly is in danger of having some "leaven" in it - we might
be focusing on what the people around us are thinking about us as we stand
up there at the bimah, which may cause us to present a façade of being
something different than what we truly are. And that's the exact opposite
of what prayer was meant to be.

And
whereas in the old days one could enter a synagogue and feel like he was
now removed from all the "honey" and materialism of the world
outside, affording him the chance to focus on things spiritual - today,
our shuls are flowing with honey, and the distractions caused by all the
materialism and obsession with fashion and physicality that is so prevalent
even in the Sanctuary, make it nearly impossible to pray in the way that
could make it effective.

Now
I am not advocating that we ban public chanting in the synagogue, God
forbid, or that everyone come to the synagogue dressed in clothing purchased
at K-mart! But what is important for all of us to realize is that prayer
today, just like its ancient predecessor - the sacrificial system, can
only work when it is done in the right atmosphere and with the proper
focus. And if we can remember that the next time we enter the synagogue
to pray to God, and we can try to remove ourselves for a few minutes from
whatever else is going on outside in order to focus on who we are and
what we really want in life, then we will have strengthened our connection
to our true selves, and, ultimately, to our Father in Heaven.